Twelve Days of Phicmas
by Hybridkylin
Summary: At least one story every day leading up to Christmas, consisting of crossposts from tumblr. Enjoy! Today: Christmas presents! CHRISTMAS PRESENTS FOR EVERYONE!
1. Attendance

So while the holidays are here and I'm writing Possession, I thought I might get around to transferring some of my old fics from tumblr. This one is based on Sapphireswimming's fic here s/9024411/1/Hooky. Check it out!

oooooo

There's a ghost in the classroom. There has been every schoolday for the past ten years. It always comes in five minutes late, says a sheepish "Sorry I'm late" to whatever teacher is taking the class _I heard they draw straws as to who takes it, and Mr. Falucca lost this week_ before going over to the desk three right and two down and sitting down regardless of whether it's occupied or not, _why are you sitting there are you mad? That's the Ghost Boy's chair. Stop hazing the newbies _looking around as if searching for someone, _why does he do that? Who knows _before shrugging and beginning work on what's been assigned. They think. The turned in tests and quizzes are always written in fancy cursive gibberish.

It wanders around the halls on an unchanging timetable; just like its chair, its locker is untouched except by the brave or the ignorant. After ten years the fear has faded into curiosity which has faded into the mundane, and it's almost become a mascot. It's friendly enough to talk to, something nearly every student has been dared to do at some point in their tuition, even if it won't remember you tomorrow.

Some of the more fearless and cruel students take advantage of this fact. They are scolded by teachers who remember young Danny Fenton, the amount fewer each year. Small things happen those days. Tied shoelaces. Lost homework. A sudden accidental door slam. Easily and uneasily passed off as coincidence.

Once every year, a woman in black with purple eyes arrives. She talks to the ghost boy during lunchbreak, and it always smiles and says she reminds him of a friend of his, are you related? She leaves as the bell rings an hour of conversation later, in silent tears that puzzle it that day and are forgotten the next.


	2. Engineered

This is the full version of an excerpt written for a surprisingly popular AU I called Ghost Hunger Variant out of sheer lack of imagination, and then Divergence AU, which caused some confusion when that one movie came out. In this, Danny is, in fact, not the perfectly ordinary son of Jack and Maddie Fenton that he thinks he is, but a thought failed GIW commissioned bioweapon created to fight and consume ghosts. _Thought_ failed, because now that puberty is hitting, all that long dormant programming is getting activated…

On tumblr, nathanlame, now tlawkeye, wrote fic for this, a fact I still can't quite believe! You can find it here: s/9985775/1/Divergence

oooooooo

Things started getting _weird_ for Danny Fenton roughly after his fourteenth birthday. Of course, being the son of ghost hunters in a ghost infested town meant that his life had already been up there in terms of weirdness levels, but this was new.

This did not seem to have any cause and couldn't seem to be stopped.

At first it was nothing more than an increase in appetite that lead to more than one midnight fridge raid, which Danny thought meant he was finally hitting his growth spurt and the idea of getting as tall as, or even taller than Dash greatly appealed to him.

It got worse, though. After a while it seemed no matter how much he ate the more he stayed hungry, the hungrier he got. He could eat until he felt like he'd explode and still feel like he was starving, and the pangs made it difficult to get to sleep.

One morning, though, he woke up blessedly fine and thought nothing of it apart from gratitude that whatever had been happening was over. As he was brushing his teeth in the mirror his eyes flashed green and he was so surprised he swallowed his own toothbrush and began to choke on it. He desperately clawed at his throat and suddenly one of his hands began to prickle with a numb pins and needles sensation, the toothbrush flying out and hitting the floor tiles.

He'd sat there, panting heavily, before he realized his hand had gone into his neck. Was still _in _his neck. He drew it out with a yelp and watched as colour slowly faded back into it. Intangibility and he couldn't blame sleep deprivation for this one. Only ghosts could do that; had he died in his sleep, had the strange hunger killed him? But no, wait, he still needed to breathe, he'd been choking mere seconds ago, and a frantic fumbling for his pulse revealed it was still as there as ever, to a sigh of relief.

He sat slumped on the bathroom floor until Jazz banged on the door and startled him out of it.

Breakfast was consumed in a confused haze. It was a good thing it was a Sunday; Sam had gotten him and Tucker tickets to a monster movie and he could definitely do with some distraction. He cringed when _it_ happened again, the spoon falling straight through his hand into the milk below, and hid the limb under the table, hoping no one had noticed. No one had.

"Danny, have you seem my ectoplasmic samples? I left them in the fridge." He looked up at the jumpsuited woman frowning into the appliance.

"No, Mom. Maybe Dad moved them?"

"That man… I hope he didn't mistake them for food again. Ectoplasm poisoning is a serious matter."

Frankly Danny didn't know how you could mistake something green and _glowing_ for actual food, but his father was pretty absentminded. He rolled his eyes at the last sentence which seemed to have been pointedly directed at him and his sister. "I know, Mom. I'm gonna head out now, okay?" She nodded, and he put his bowl away and raced out the door.

Nothing… _strange_ happened for the rest of the day, and walking down the street in the sun, chatting with Sam and Tucker about which bits of the movie had been great for all the wrong reasons, the morning's events seemed rather faded and uncertain. Had they really happened or had he just dreamed it? In the end he decided not to mention it to them, and waved at them before walking up Fenton Work's front steps, shaking his head at the sign.

He was almost immediately accosted by a sweet smell which made his mouth unconsciously water. He tried to place it; it was sort of syrupy, acidic and tangy. The thought that maybe his parents were cooking something was negatively impacted by the emptiness of the kitchen; he followed the scent and found it led him towards the open lab door. That was weird.

He stood in the doorway, and stopped. The scent was thick now; he could actually taste it, like licking a battery, and he found himself trying to draw air across his tongue in quick shallow breaths. This probably looked stupid, and he self-consciously ceased.

"Mom? Dad?"

The two forms turned to him, lifting up goggles simultaneously. "Yes, sweetie?" Even that small movement wafted more of that delicious smell towards him and he licked his lips and stepped down a stair.

"What are you working on?"

The larger man beamed. "I knew you'd be interested! This here is a ghost we've managed to capture! Come see!" He moved his frame such that Danny could get a good view of the dissection table, and it was indeed a dissection table for lying pinned at four corners was something green, globulous and in shape indefinable. Danny's stomach turned even as he had to swallow down a tide of saliva. Jack, completely oblivious to his discomfort, began expounding on what they'd found.

Danny tore his gaze away from the thing as a gloved hand laid on his forehead and he looked up into a face full of concern.

"Are you okay, Danny? You look pale."

"Fine, yeah, fine um… I just remembered I totally forgot some homework due Monday I'll just go do it bye!"

He practically bolted up the stairs and into his bedroom and sat on the bed. What was _wrong _with him? He looked at the clock. Too early to sleep but he didn't feel like going down to dinner. He pulled the covers over himself anyway.

He woke up several hours later, inexplicably cold. He shivered and pulled his blankets around him and watched his breath mist up in the air, which was stupid because it was _August_. After a few more futile tosses and turns he sat up and decided he'd go see if the thermostat was broken since it was clear he wasn't getting any sleep until things were at a more sane temperature.

He glanced out the window and froze, more figuratively than literally this time. A figure was moving, _floating_, down the other side of the street, glowing blue and trailing boxes. _Ghost._ He sank down below the level of the window and hoped it hadn't seen him, which was his general response whenever a ghost showed up at Casper High. The other was screaming and running. The third was being generally mortified by his parents showing up.

And yet…

Almost against his will, he moved closer to the window and peeked over the top of the sill. The ghost _hadn't_ seen him and was a little further down the street, and inexplicably Danny had to wrestle with the urge to jump out the window and _chase it_ before it turned a corner and was lost to sight. Danny lightly thunked his head against the wall. He hated ghosts, he feared them, he was _not_ going to leap out a _second story window_ after them like a barefoot maniac.

And yet…

Something in him was disappointed. It was a strange part that did not seem to understand that he was only a puny human and ghosts could kill or hurt him in any number of creative ways; in fact it seemed to scoff at the idea. He groaned and wondered if this is what Dad had meant about 'the Fenton genes eventually kicking in'. Next thing he'd be wearing a jumpsuit and then there'd be no hope for him.

At some point the issue with the temperature seemed to have had resolved itself and he got back into bed, only to wake up a scant few hours later feeling like he'd swallowed an icicle. _Not again._ Evidently further sleep wasn't happening tonight. He got up and turned his alarm off; it was only half an hour until he'd have to wake up anyway, and rubbed his eyes.

The ghost was outside the window again, and it was closer and it was _looking_ at him. He yelped and dived under his bed, and after a few seconds realized he was _growling_ at it, what the fuck, and clamped his hands over his mouth. The ghost seemed pleased by this reaction; it threw up its arms and yelled "YOU RIGHTLY FEAR ME, FOR I AM THE BOX GHOOOOST!"

Danny did not care what kind of ghost it was, only that it was one, and stayed perfectly still and silent in the hope it would go away or his parents would hear it's shouting and come in guns blazing, which was unlikely given his dad's snoring and mom's earplugs. It moved _through_ the window and into the room and he tensed, not daring to look away. His eyes felt like they were burning, and he blinked away tears. The ghost paused in its advance, before pointing dramatically at him. "THE MIGHTY AND GENEROUS BOX GHOST HAS DECIDED THAT YOU MAY LIVE ANOTHER DAY! BEWARE!" At that, it turned and flew away back though the wall.

Before Danny even realized he was moving he was lunging for it, rising up like a runner at the starting blocks and if he'd been more inclined to notice he'd have felt himself phase through the bed to do so. His foot caught on his schoolbag where it had been unceremoniously dumped on the floor and he slammed onto the hardwood boards face first to great complaint from his chin. When the stars had disappeared the ghost was long gone.

That disappointed feeling was back, laced with a certain amount of _almost had it_ frustration, but mainly Danny was relieved that that stupid impulse _hadn't_ come to anything. He didn't know what would have happened if he'd actually managed to grab onto it.

Oh great, his mouth was watering again. He wiped the excess drool onto his sleeve.

Was it too much to hope the weirdness was over?


	3. Iridescence

So I when I wrote this I was thinking 'what if Undergrowth never turned up as a convenient target to practice burgeoning ice powers on' and then I thought 'wow, these elemental ghosts sure are dedicated to spreading their element' and I swear I didn't mean to angst officer, it just happened. This is actually a companion piece to a fic called Incandescence with, you guessed it, fire core Danny, that I submitted to Nathanlame as thanks for writing the Divergence fic. Come to think of it, I should probably post that here too, hang on.

oooooo

Danny shivered under the covers, miserable. It didn't matter how he tossed and turned, how many blankets piled up over him, how many heaters were currently going full blast in his room; he was still awfully, paradoxically cold. He hadn't been able to feel his fingers for the past hour, and rubbing them together with worries of frostbite did nothing.

Mist plumed out and faded in front of him, but he didn't bother moving except to shudder and pull the covers closer around him. It wasn't a ghost, it was just whatever was wrong with him that made him colder than the surrounding air. The first false alarm hadn't been fun. Despite a cough so phlegmy it made the lungs of whoever heard it squeeze in sympathy he'd spent a good afternoon running around what felt like all of Amity trying to find the nonexistent specter.

And not flying, because trying to go ghost had resulted in this turn for the worse. He sneezed, and the bed actually moved back a few inches as the dresser beside it gained a thick lacquer of jagged ice. He stared at it in alarm.

When Jazz came in with a bowl of hot soup for him he was gone, leaving only a room covered in ice that was hissing where it had settled on the heaters, and an open window coated in hoarfrost.

ooo

Danny ran aimlessly, puffs of mist streaming behind him like a steam train and a rhythmic crunching greeting each numb footfall as it coated the grass beneath him with frost. Each breath felt like knives, and the lack of feeling had started to spread up his limbs. In retrospect, going outside at night in this condition had been a bad idea, but panic about his secret's discovery, overshadowed by the fear of freezing _everything_ in the house drove him forward, trying to find an open space where he couldn't hurt anyone.

It didn't help that the snow was thickening, despite only starting to fall no more than half an hour ago. _Snow_, in _summer_. He could tell he was somewhere with trees, and that was about it. His foot met a puddle that froze solid even before it touched it, and with a cry he slipped and fell forward in an impressive display of flailing limbs, coming to rest dazed in the center of a rapidly widening circle of ice.

He should get up and keep going. He had no idea how far away he was from houses. And yet he didn't want to move. He was tired, bone tired, and it was getting harder to think and surely he could just rest here for a bit? He fought to keep his eyes open, vaguely recalling from various picked up sources that falling asleep in these conditions came with a very real chance of not waking up, but it was a losing battle. Before he slipped away entirely he made in desire of survival the choice he had been instinctively avoiding, and went ghost.

Cold so cold it felt like he'd been set on _fire_ flooded through every inch of him, and made things exponentially worse.

ooo

He woke up slowly, pleasantly, feeling well rested for perhaps the first time in so long he'd almost forgotten what it felt like. He'd had a nice dream, although about what he couldn't exactly remember, and he was no longer cold. Or rather, he _was_ cold, very cold actually, but it didn't hurt. In fact it comfortably cocooned him the way warm covers did, and similar to those Saturdays he'd slept in he was absolutely fine with not moving and just enjoying this half asleep border state before real life decided to kick down the door.

Real life took the form of a small burst of pain, no more serious than a papercut or splinter but like them all the more irritating for it, and he sent a burst of energy to the site as one would scratch an itch. Satisfied when it stopped, he made to roll over, and realized he couldn't.

His eyes shot open, or rather they would have because they couldn't either. In a process that had gone unnoticed until now, the muscles in his chest, or whatever passed for muscles in ghost form, twitched as they tried to expand and draw in nonexistent air, a process that was increasing in speed as panic flushed whatever seeping drowsiness remained out of his system.

He struggled and strained, but whatever was encasing him would not give an inch. Forcing himself to calm down, his facsimile heart racing to almost human levels, he turned intangible. Phasing through the stuff was like moving through treacle, but at least he _could_ move. It seemed reluctant to let him go, and as the minutes ticked by he became increasingly worried. He wasn't accidentally phasing into the ground, was he? He wouldn't fall for who knows how long and come out the other side of the earth? But no, he could see sunlight or something approaching it coming through his closed eyelids, and eventually the feel of air moving through him told him he was free.

He became solid, and opened his eyes to find the point of a skyscraper sized spire of ice perilously close to his stomach. Lesser spikes circled it, and were in turn circled. It looked like a wintery bomb had gone off in Amity Park's park, forming an icy flower, and as he looked outward with increasing horror it hadn't stopped there. For a block or so from the park cars and houses and streets and _people_ could be seen through the crystal clear substance, frozen in transparent amber. Nausea surged up his throat and he fought it back down.

He turned invisible and swooped lower at a commotion on the eastern side. Someone had taken a sawblade to one of the smaller ice spires on the outskirts, _so that's what that was_, and was sobbing in pain because that sawblade and the arms that held it were now frozen solid to it. Others had been trying to get him free, but it was refusing to melt and any hot water poured onto it had simply frozen as well. Once again, Danny had to force back rising bile. He'd done this, and it had been as easy as swatting a fly.

He placed unseen hands on the man's shoulders and sent intangibility into him. Once again the ice was reluctant to let go, but he ignored it and pulled him free, whereupon he was immediately surrounded by people with warm blankets. The sawblade stayed where it was.

He wasn't sure if the people fully trapped in the ice were still aware, and seeing their frozen expressions and wide eyes of fear, he really really hoped they weren't, but he resolved himself to getting every single one of them out of the mess he'd put them in. He refused to entertain the thought they were dead. It was just like cryogenics, right? People could survive a long time in ice, he was sure he'd heard somewhere. He dove in, and the hard part began.

The ice surrounding him was calming. Soothing. While it wasn't a struggle to stay alert, it was tempting to just stay inside, letting living ice spread outward from him to cover and preserve the entire town as in a snowglobe, to keep it safe and his forever. It terrified him that part of him thought this was a good idea. He shook his head and shook it off as much as he could, and found the nearest citizen. They had been crossing the street, and looked like a deer caught in headlights. The part of him he was doing his best to ignore was annoyed that she hadn't been caught unawares so as to create a more accurate snapshot.

Pulling her free was just as difficult, but he snarled and wrenched and shoved his anger and shame and guilt into this one task and finally got her into the open air, panting. She wasn't breathing, and he desperately tried to remember how CPR went. He performed it as best he could as her form started to thaw in the sun, and people began to gather and stare. In the end he stood, and rubbed his eyes on the back of a white glove, and walked robotically back towards the ice. There were others to get out.

He started outwards and worked inwards, and what finally broke him was the sight of someone far closer to the epicenter than they should have been, scarf wrapped around the bottom half of her face, orange hair streaming out behind her, teal headband and brown coat and one hand outstretched towards where he'd been.


	4. Incandescence

One day, I will write, or rather finish, an electric core Danny fic to go with these two, so I can make reference to "disturb not the forces of fire, ice and lightning, lest these titans wreak havoc upon the world in which they clash" like a dork. That day is not today, not least because I can't find another word that starts with 'I' and ends with 'descence'.

oooooo

It was absolute chaos.

He'd spotted the plume of smoke easily on patrol over Elmerton, and had dived in without thought. The fire wasn't the ghosts he was used to dealing with, but that hardly mattered. At first, it had been easy or semi easy; he'd found it incredibly frustrating at the time. He'd decided to start at the top floor and work his way down, since the blaze had only fully engulfed the first three, and it was already being fought with high pressure hoses. Mostly, it was making sure people got to the fire escape, escorting those unable to move fast enough or who needed persuading to leave their possessions behind. A few had even refused to believe there actually was a fire at first.

Once the tenth floor was clear, smoke had started to curl in the ninth floor. People here were a lot more panicked and a lot more inclined to leave, although this backfired in the crush at the exits. Some people had been glad to see him, some hadn't, and his jaw still stung where one deceptively wiry old man had punched him hard in the face. He'd wasted a few seconds being literally gobsmacked, before going invisible and tackling him that way.

The eighth floor was completely choked with smoke, and he'd never been more glad of his glow as it gave people something to head towards. While he didn't technically need oxygen like this, breathing in the thick acrid substance was still unpleasant, and he knew his lungs would hate him when he changed back. He'd called, and people cried out back, choking, and this is where he'd started to fly them down to the ambulance crews rather than let them try to leave under their own power. Outside the building he could see the firemen had set up a ladder and were plucking people off the highest point of the fire escape they could reach, the lower section having collapsed. The flames were roaring on the fourth floor now, and he'd hurried back to the eighth to do a quick intangible sweep, terrified he'd missed someone.

On the seventh floor people had stopped responding, no matter how loudly he shouted. The task slowed to a snail's pace as he desperately checked each room individually, heart leaping into his throat every time he saw a slumped form on the floor or a bed. He didn't bother checking for a pulse or breathing; it was get them out, get them down, return, repeat.

On the sixth floor the fire had reached the fusebox down below, and the lights were out. In the dense blackness Danny became disoriented, having lost all points of reference save for the exterior of the building. He couldn't tell if he was in a wall or open space, whether he'd checked this area before, whether he was even on the same _floor_… he'd stumbled on a young girl, no more than six or seven, quite by chance; she'd been clutching a torch to her chest like a lifeline.

It was probably a combination of the heat, smoke and sheer frustrated inability that caused him to yell "Just STOP!" at a sheet of flame that had erupted without warning in front of him and caused him to quickly backpedal or risk his current charge being singed. To his utter surprise, the flames _listened_. They stopped advancing, flickering magazine ink green at the edges, acting for all the world like they were an excited but obedient puppy, and Danny had the brief if nonsensical urge to say 'sit!'

He decided on "Uh… stop burning things?"

The flames flashed pure green, dampening from roasting heat to pleasant warmth, and he felt what had been a negligible expenditure of energy expand to a more noticeable and strangely familiar drain. He realized he'd replaced the building as the fuel keeping the blaze going, and felt a grin creep up one side of his face as a part of him totally not concerned with the situation at hand whispered "_Cool."_

A wheeze from the form in his arms reminded him that while the fire itself was currently harmless, the smoke was still a very real and present threat. He picked a direction he hoped was horizontal, and sped out of there as fast as he could, carefully resting her on a stretcher before racing back to the building. He couldn't hold back the flames indefinitely, and he stretched his senses to their limits in his desperate search for survivors.

And then past them. Suddenly he was aware of the building itself. He could tell that the floor below him was unstable, because the flames had bitten nearly halfway through it. He could tell where the windows on the lower floors were, because green flame was pouring out of them like water that had decided gravity was for losers. And he _felt_ when the firehoses turned on the blaze, giving a brief hiss of pain when they momentarily extinguished part of it. He suddenly realized why the situation felt familiar. _Duplication_. There was that same sense of connection, except that instead of a transient copy of himself part of him was now a six storey tall inferno.

He closed his eyes and looked deeper. There were… gaps? Shapes? Areas of less heat. They came into focus the harder he concentrated, became humanoid, and he realized he was sensing people's _body heat_, the furnace of their metabolisms lesser versions of the blaze surrounding them. He opened his eyes and began to move with more direction, increasingly aware that the longer he held it back the more incessantly the fire pestered him to be allowed to follow its nature. Each time he went back in there were less and less of the shapes, until finally the last one was rolled up into the back of an ambulance and he exhaled and unconsciously relaxed.

The building _exploded_.

Car alarms blared as hot shards of pain embedded themselves in his back and he screamed as the shockwave flipped him into the façade of the bank across the street, slamming them in further. The connection hiccupped and went into _reverse_; energy being fed back into him, and it was far too much, far too fast. It felt like someone was trying to pour a swimming pool into a water balloon. He clutched at his chest, panting and feverish. The world was slanting left and right, or was that him, but he could vaguely see the apartment building as a black skeleton in the heart of a tower of roaring incandescent greenwhite flames, several toppled emergency vehicles surrounding it.

His aura was doing crazy things, the normally thin white sheen barely noticeable in sunlight now blindingly bright and extending several inches from his body, the edges flickering and crackling. He could only watch in disbelief as with a final flare the blaze, having run out of fuel to consume, extinguished itself, leaving no evidence of the structure but twisted molten girders and concrete cooling down from a red hot heat.

He became aware of hundreds of eyes on him as he staggered to his feet. It didn't take a genius to guess the emotions behind them. Awe, fear, suspicion, horror, anger… the screech of the RV arriving snapped the tenuous ringing silence, and he turned tail and fled.


	5. Found What You Were Looking For

This is a superphantom snippet written for a "Send an 'X' in my askbox and I'll reply with a fic snippet for an AU, headcanon or fic idea I have that I'm too chicken to actually publish" text post. It's inspired by these, well, Inspireds by ittickleslikecrazy s/10113259/5/Inspired and s/10113259/10/Inspired. I've extrapolated it into the idea of halfas being a monster species that preys on ghosts and demons and so hasn't really come to the attention of the hunter community which tends to focus on looking for suspicious human fatalities. Hence the name despite no actual affiliation with heaven and Meg's fear in the Inspired fic. They're pretty much indistinguishable from humans until a certain age, reproduce by having kids with humans, sometimes with the trait skipping generations resulting in a lot of confusion due to no instruction manuals whatsoever, and in the periods in which demons are out and about tend to frequently get killed before maturity by those that discover what they are while they're still vulnerable. You may have noticed I have a fondness for certain themes.

oooooo

The bar was like many other bars; noisy, alight, an atmosphere of people quietly getting drunk blending with the raucous laughter among friends who are tipsy enough to forget about the existence of self censoring.

He kicked the door in. Several heads looked up disinterestedly and returned to their previous occupation.

"I'm looking," he said, raising his voice above the chatter and shifting so the gun he was holding was clearly visible, "For a Hound of Heaven."

A hush immediately fell over the bar, and as all twenty or so patrons, including the bartender, paused, sobered, and turned to face him with eyes that flashed lurid green, he began to wonder if he had miscalculated.

The air was thick with the tension that occurs when more than one person is trying to surreptitiously place their hand on a weapon. Except if the research was correct it wasn't exactly _weapons_ these creatures were readying.

The silence was broken by what looked like a college student who could only, in a word, be described as "scraggly". It held up a finger.

"Actually, we find the phrase "Hounds of Heaven" a bit archaic and racist. We much prefer the term, "halfas"."


	6. Paved With Good Intentions

Once, I watched a kid's show in which a man bought a doll for his baby, which he tossed it to. Turns out, it was a voodoo doll, and we got to watch the man's limbs contort in unnatural ways as it was abused. The child bit the head, and the man rushed into the room containing the crib in a panic… cue a shot of the baby ripping off the doll's head.

oooooo

Danny didn't know if it was the copious amounts of pain medication or the creeping illness in him that was doing the hallucinating for him, but seeing as he wasn't flying through any ghost catchers anytime soon, that was the only possible explanation for seeing his ghost half standing by the hospital bed he was chained to with words like 'inoperable' and 'metastases', looking at the heart monitor with interest.

"This is all your fault," he accused, too tired to muster up any strong emotion about the fact. He hated how thin and weak his voice sounded, but he hoped the words themselves had enough bite. He sent a dull glare towards the illusion for good measure.

It looked up at him when he spoke, bouncing between the balls of its feet and the toes like a puppy getting attention, before a puzzled expression slid onto its face.

"What do you mean? I'm helping!" It cocked its head to one side, and man that was weird to see, his own photonegative image. "I thought you _liked_ healing fast."

"This isn't healing!" Danny spluttered. "This is _killing_ me!"

"Oh," it said, as if he'd told it to use pencil instead of pen. "Well then."

Cold hands grasped his shoulders in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring, and Danny stared uncertainly up into neon green rings.

"I'll just kill what's killing you," it said matter of factly, as if things were that simple.

"No wait! Don't!"

It was too late. Intangible hands had closed around the entrenched flesh threading through his entire body.

They _pulled_


	7. Split Personality

This is what going through the ghost catcher a second time results in: a paranoid nervous wreck of a boy who refuses to leave his room, and a fearless ghost with no sense of self preservation. Oh boy.

oooooo

She sat at the kitchen table and stared at the gun she was ostensibly working on. The sound of a door slamming, the click of the lock and the thud of something hitting it as her son shouted for her to go away with real fear in his voice _hurt_. What had she done wrong?

"Why has Danny been avoiding me?" she thought aloud. "It's not like him…" Although, she had to admit to herself, that was partly a lie. He'd sometimes flinch under her touch now, and they'd drifted apart and she didn't know the cause. She sighed. They used to be as thick as thieves.

"It's because he's scared of you," came a nonchalant voice from behind, a _familar_ echo to it. She whipped around to see Public Ghost Enemy No. 1, Phantom, standing in her kitchen for all the world as if he belonged there, rummaging in the cookie jar tucked under his arm.

"Why would he be?" She said sharply, stalling for enough time to bring up the weapon on the table to point at the ridiculous logo on his chest.

"Why are you pointing a gun at me?" He replied, rhetorically, unconcernedly. He took a bite of the cookie. "Do you mind, by the way? Trying to eat here."

"Ghosts… don't eat," she said. Nothing about today was making sense. He shrugged, finished off the first cookie and pulled out another. "Put that back," she snapped, to have at least some feeling of control over the situation.  
>Phantom brought it up to his face, exaggeratedly examining it, mock considering it. He stared levelly at her, green eyes gleaming mischeviously, catlike, and took a slow, deliberate bite.<p>

"Mmm. Make me, Mom."


	8. Gone Horribly Right

This takes place in an AU where Danny reveals his secret to his parents circa MM and asks them to fix him. As bibliomatsuri I think put it in the tags: "Bad end."

oooooo

Danny wakes up slowly, his mind still hazy and fuzzy from the anaesthetic. He automatically tries to move, and finds that movement restricted.

"Mum? Dad?" He calls out. His voice echoes. "Did it work?"

The lab is as dark and empty as it ever gets, with the light of the portal washing everything in green and the blinking LEDs and readouts of various machines scattered around like stars. He looks down at himself, to see black jumpsuit and white encased feet and a soft glow. He sighs, disappointed, and tips his head back onto the metal examination table that should be cold to him but is instead business as usual for a ghost.

"I guess it didn't…" Now that he's listening for it, he can hear his voice echoing more than the expanse of the lab would allow.

As the minutes tick by, he becomes increasingly anxious, but forces himself to remain calm. When the door to the lab opens something leaps in his chest in relief and then drops like a stone and shatters into a thousand tiny pieces when he sees who it is.

That someone is black haired and blue eyed and is staring at him with the shock and horror he's sure is mirrored on his face. The drink _himself_ is holding falls from nerveless fingers and hits the concrete floor with a sound far louder than should be, splattering the walls and floor with Coke.

"No…" Danny says. "Nononono. This can't be happening. This_ can't_ be. You said you'd get rid of it. You said you'd_ get rid of it_." He frantically searches within himself for the heavy warmth that settles in his chest and has always let him _change back_, and lets out a choked sob when he can't find it. There's nothing but cold, dead stillness; it's gone. Because it's currently across the room from him, staring at him like a deer caught in headlights.

If he could grab his head, we would have, but the straps pinning down his limbs won't even give an inch as he struggles against them. They're phaseproof, he notes suddenly, and while he is in a state of mind to be noticing such things when he cranes his neck to the side he can see the tray of anticipatorily meticulously arranged sterilized surgical instruments to his right, glinting eagerly sharp and ready for use.

He throws his head back, and _screams_.


	9. Roadtrip

This one features my two OCs! Please, please, calm your screams of terror.

One is the escaped result of a battle royal in the clone reject bin. The other is a girl with a fascination for taxidermy and a dream of making it big. They hunt ghosts!

oooooo

A small white rectangle flutters to the ground and he stoops to pick it up, shifting the weight of the pack so it doesn't fall forward over his head. **ANNIE AND EMMETT**, it proclaims. **GHOST HUNTERS EXTRAORDINAIRE**. Someone, and he is one hundred percent certain he knows who, has gone to pains to make the thick font and off white background resemble an ouija board. Briefly he wonders if it could be used as one.

With the proper protective charms attached, of course. As Annie is fond of emphasizing to clients, they are _professionals._

"Business cards," he says flatly, giving her an equally level stare complete with slightly raised eyebrow as he slowly turns the object in question in his fingers, inked, blank, inked, blank. The _really?_ is implied.

Annie turns from the car door in which she's just shoved a box which has the words _Research_ scrawled on the side in black marker. She looks up, catches his expression and grins. The smile very nearly reflects off the beetle's pale yellow paintwork.

"Business cards!" she confirms. "All the rage these days. Well, and a lot of _those_ days. They're classic. Timeless." She shuts the door with a little effort and a lot of kicking things into place. "And they'll get us more spread, more jobs. We can actually get motel rooms with beds you can _bounce_ on!"

Curse her for knowing the way to his heart. He _does_ like bouncy beds, as Annie's poor old abused one in the grey house behind him can attest. He resists the siren call because it is up to him to be the practical one here.

"Cost?"

"Way ahead of you." She pulls a crumpled receipt from her pocket, balls it up and tosses it to him. He catches it easily and unravels it, taking note of the total. She must have foreseen this question. "They're cheaper in bulk, and I didn't go crazy with the card type, but if we can get these circulating they'll pay for themselves a thousand times over."

He nods, satisfied, and pockets the card. She's very much thought this through.

"Done with the standing around? Come on, the keys are burning a hole in my pocket!" She jumps into the driver's seat in clear excitement, and he places the pack in the already dangerously crowded backseat before slipping shotgun, ducking just in time to avoid smacking his head on the doorframe. He's never been in a car before. It's a little… confined, he muses as he shuts the door and fastens the seatbelt on the third try. It's making certain instincts antsy, telling him there's little room to maneuver if there's an attacker.

Annie smiles at him as she turns the keys. She has been looking forward to this 'roadtrip' for quite some time. He feels his face return the favour, almost involuntarily.

It's not so bad.

When life in the fast lane comes on the radio, they sing along at the top of their lungs.


	10. Thirty Years

Quite a lot of these stem from AUs, now I think about it. This one is a fusion with Gravity Falls, where the Fentons lived there during the Eighties, and were an integral factor in the Big Thing That Went Down then. Since Danny disappeared around the same time, his parents assumed it was their fault and renounced letting their passion for the supernatural take precedence over their kids. They took Jazz and left town, and it was 2012 by the time two twins and their curiosity meant Danny would see sunlight again.

Yes, Mabel is excited about hot 80s boy in a can. And yes, Reverse World _is_ the Revpines universe.

oooooo

It was dark, in the thermos.

It was either that, or he didn't have eyes anymore, and that was something he definitely didn't want to think about. Of course, given he'd been in here long enough for boredom to set in multiple times over, it _had_ been something he'd thought about. Along with how he didn't feel like he had limbs, and couldn't speak, and moving was ugh… no. Moving was distinctly unpleasant, feeling himself shift over himself and be repelled by cold metal.

The memory of the backlash when he'd tried to form an ectoblast was an unpleasant one.

No matter how he tried to distract himself, and he'd probably have gone insane long ago if sleep wasn't an option, his mind keep returning to two points like a tongue to a rotten tooth.

One, how small the thermos was on the outside. He hoped it was bigger on the inside, that his parents had been messing around with extradimensionality when they made it. It wouldn't have been the first time; their house never _had_ been entirely the same after that brief jaunt to Reverse World.

Because two, what would happen if it _was_ that size and he involuntarily transformed back to human form? He'd had several nightmares involving _that_. Waking up to be in exactly the same position as before hadn't helped in reassuring himself that's just what they were, especially when they'd gotten recursive.

Memories were better. Staying up late to watch a meteor shower on the roof of the ops center. Sam dragging him and Tucker down to the lake at far too early in the morning to protest chemical dumping there; as a Northwest, she had some pull. The entire weekend he and Tucker spent at the arcade at a vow to get their names in the high score section of every game there, their honor as gamers at stake. They had _almost_ managed it.

…sneaking down to the basement of the strange outpost out in the woods that his parents kept disappearing off to with their friends, throwing around words like 'unprecedented' and 'top secret' and since they were not the best at keeping quiet about things they were enthusiastic about, it had been easy to find.

That was a strong memory. Even leaving aside everything else, it was ultimately why he was in here.

He had no idea if he'd been here weeks or months or days. Not even a heartbeat to keep time by. He was sure, though, that his friends were looking for him. They'd know if he disappeared suddenly that something like this could have happened. It was just a matter of waiting for them to find him.

He'd be let out soon.

Right?


	11. The Power Of Friendship

This was written for the same event as Found What You Were Looking For and Paved With Good Intentions. I've always been fascinated by fics where Danny's ghost half feeds on human emotion, but I don't think anyone's made this take on it before.

oooooo

"Danny, it doesn't matter what's happened to you, you're still our friend!"

"Yeah, man," Tucker said, at a subtle nudge from Sam. "We're not going to hate you just because you keep falling through floors."

Danny looked up at them from his slumped seat on the bed, something clenching in his chest. It felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and something fizzy was rushing in to fill the gap. He felt the spike of energy it gave coalesce and flare out in a pair of sweeping rings that lit up the room like a camera flash before he could stop it. He cringed. He hadn't told them about _this_.

That same, indescribable something emanating from the two in front of him didn't falter, becoming flavoured with curiosity and wonder instead of the worry and concern it replaced or even the fear and calumny he expected; strong and heady and determined. Forget a glass of water to a man dying of thirst in the desert, it was an oasis of ice cold beer. He drew it in around himself like a blanket, sucking it in greedily.

He felt tears prickling at his eyes, and looked away, blinking rapidly and letting out a shaky breath.

"Danny?" Sam reached out and touched his shoulder, and he didn't flinch away this time. There was that taste again; citric concern dancing across his tongue for lack of any other way to interpret it.

"I'm fine," he said, voice thick, and he turned and gave her a wavery but genuine reassuring smile and tried to ignore the wetness running down his cheeks. From the way Sam and Tucker carefully didn't ask, he could tell they were too, and was grateful for it. He swallowed. "…you two are the best friends anyone could hope for, you know that?"

"Well, _duh_," Tucker said. Sam elbowed him, but it was goodnatured and only made him wince instead of yelp.

Danny grinned, then chuckled until his shoulders shook in tightly contained laughter. He felt… better, much better than he had in _weeks_.

Everything was going to be all right.

"Hey, Sam!"

The_ thing_ in his chest thrummed in anticipation, a vibration he could feel all through his body up to the earbones. This probably would have disturbed him more if it weren't for the drip feed thrill of endorphins it sent through him at Sam's phone tuned reply, causing him to lose his train of thought in that regard.

"Hey, Danny! What's up?"

"Nothing much," he said easily, lightly. "Mum and Dad are sending me back to school next Monday so Tucker's declared movie marathon night tonight."

"Let me guess, all of the Dead Teachers?"

Danny grinned. "Yep! Even the latest that isn't on DVD yet. He won't tell me how he got it." Danny knew enough to know full well, anyway.

"I can guess," Sam said wryly. "Count me in." There was a pause, as if she was trying to work out how to word her next sentence. "Hey Danny, is everything alright? You've been a bit… clingy, lately."

Danny felt guilt suffuse him a little. How could he explain that just being around them was enough to make him feel better, more energetic and in control, like a shot of energy drinks? He didn't quite understand it himself.

"Yeah, everything's fine," he said, and it was the complete opposite of a lie, even if it left out the details. "I've just been cooped up in the house a lot, I'd probably have gone crazy with boredom by now if I was still grounded." This was also true.

This seemed to mollify Sam. "Alright," she said warmly. "Unfortunately I, unlike _some_ lucky people, have homework to do, so I'll see you tonight."

"See you!" he replied, and listened as she hung up. Things were already looking better.

Maybe it was selfish, but even leaving everything… _else_ aside, he alone, Danny, the boy from before the accident… after two weeks of pushing everyone he knew away, he knew he needed and wanted this as much as that alien ghostly graft on his soul did.


	12. Finished Business

The theme for the first day of Ectober on tumblr was 'Finished Business'. Caffienechick came up with an interesting idea of Vlad letting go of his obsessions while in space… and inadvertently dying as his ghost half moved on and stopped protecting him from it. It made me wonder under which circumstances the same would happen to Danny.

oooooo

Danny knew by now that a sudden absence of ghosts, rather than being a reprieve, generally meant nothing good. Initially glad that he'd got a full night's sleep for once, he became increasingly antsy as the day dragged on without spectral interruption and his teachers looked at him and his actual continuous presence in class with suspicion.

Sam and Tucker had felt the same way to a lesser degree, although they'd tried to reassure him.

As soon as the bell rang, he was off, the action of finding a hidden place to transform and then invisibly kick off the ground from almost automatic at this point. Since the ghosts weren't coming to him, he'd go and see what was happening with them.

He phased his head through the ceiling of the lab. The first thing he spotted the blue and orange of his parent's jumpsuits; that was a worry, but as long as he remained quiet and invisible he'd be able to sneak past. Ectoplasmic sensors had difficulty detecting anything in here against the sheer background radiation of the open portal…

The dead, dark and half dismantled portal. As he unconsciously floated lower, his father cleaved off another piece with an acetylene torch; they weren't even _trying_ to salvage anything.

He was so shocked he lost invisibility entirely, and only realized his mistake when Jack paused, lifted up the visor, and turned.

"Looks like we missed one, Mads!"

"That's odd… the Fenton Ghost Radar should have picked it up earlier."

Danny, for his part, could only stare at what was left of the portal, only half aware that his parents were reaching for the nearest weapons. No ghosts in Amity. No portal for them to come back through.

He could _stop?_

The thought seemed to trigger something, a sort of fizzy feeling that started at his extremities and began to work its way up. He stared at his hands in alarm as their glow began to brighten, steam rising up from them and curling in the air.

His parents had lowered their weapons and stared, fascinated, before Maddie seemed to snap out of it.

"Jack, the camera!"

"Got it!" His father ran over to one of many piles of apparent junk and hefted up something that looked like an old timey camera had had a run in with, well, his parents' innovative spirit. "Man, this could be our last chance to see this phenomenon!"

"_What_ phenomenon?"Danny cried, futilely shaking his arm to try and get rid of the steam. Wisps of him seemed to be detaching and dissolving. "What's happening to me!?" Visions of Danielle melting were playing across his mind; maybe it wasn't just a clone thing, maybe it had just happened to them _first_. It didn't hurt; in fact, it felt vaguely pleasant, but Freakshow's staff had met those criteria and still been far from a good thing.

"You don't know?" Jack said curiously, a hulking mass behind the camera's hood. A green light was blinking to the side of the lens pointed right at Danny.

"You've fulfilled your obsession," Maddie said, with the sort of tone _he_ used whenever one of his enemies had made a fatal miscalculation that resulted in their defeat. "Effectively, you have no more reason to exist, Phantom."

"But I'm not… I can't…" His mind was starting to become a little hazy around the edges. In the background he could hear his dad muttering excitedly about readings.

"You're fighting it." Maddie tilted her head. "Don't you want to rest?" she said in a tone carefully pitched to be soothing.

…he kind of really did want to, yeah. He was tired, bone tired. It was getting harder to think straight but he tried anyway, for all that attempting to marshal his thoughts was like trying to move through thick syrup. That was getting thicker.

"Just _let go_." She sounded like she was coaxing a frightened animal. An indoor wind began to pick up, strengthening in time with the flaring of his glow that carved sharp shadows into everything.

"It's okay?" He didn't care that he sounded very much like a child at that moment, fighting against the droop of his eyelids. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. "Everyone will be okay?" She silently nodded.

And so he did.

It was such, _such_ a relief. No more ghosthunting. No more sleepless nights or failed assignments. No more missing curfews and having to hurriedly find excuses for the bruises that couldn't heal fast enough. He was done. Free. He could just sink down into this peace and disappear…

The world flashed to an eyesearing white, and his last thought was that it reminded him of the accident that started it all. As a shockwave rattled the shelves and put harmless hairline cracks in the concrete_ something _gently pushed _something _back even as it raced forwards to who knew where.

And black haired, blue eyed Danny Fenton dropped to the ground, managing to land on his feet only due to two years of ghostfighting reflexes, having transformed for the very last time.


	13. Coda

…and here it is, the elusive Continuation, an epilogue for same. There was heavy request for this in the tags, but very little excitement over it when posted. Probably shouldn't have done so when everyone was having finals : /

oooooo

"…so how'd they take it?" Tucker asked as he reached across the table, stole a fry, and ate it. Danny didn't really mind. He hadn't realized just how much his metabolism had been sped up until he found himself picking at what was left of his regular order.

"They kind of _didn't_," he replied, propping up his head on hand, elbow on the table. He made a face remembering the conversation, which hadn't been fun, lingering tranquility aside. But then conversations that started with the words "Uh, I can explain!" rarely were. He'd been fussed over, which was a little exasperating, and scolded, which he was used to.

"They still think I was overshadowed or tricked or something, and I can't prove I'm _not_. Wasn't," he corrected after a second. "So they're keeping me in after school starting from tomorrow so that they can train me in "proper human ghost relations." Starting with which end of an ectogun to point at them."

Tucker's face crinkled in sympathy. "Ouch. Can I…?" He pointed, and Danny pushed the remainder of the fries towards him.

"Tch, _parents_," Sam said to his left. "I guess this means we're the only ones who'll know what really happened." She took a sip of her drink. "How are you holding up? I mean, if it's weird for_ us_, and you're the one with the powers…"

Danny rolled his eyes. "You sound like Jazz," he said lightly. "As soon as she found out she was straight to "effects on my psyche", do not pass go, do not collect $200." Okay, that wasn't _quite_ true. She'd also panicked a bit about his parents apparently knowing his secret and tried to cover for him before she'd got the full picture.

"So no Fun Danny?" Tucker said mock disappointedly through a mouthful of fries.

Danny just grinned. "You'll have to actually _pay_ to get into theatres now, Tuck. Shock, horror."

"And you'll have to memorize your locker number again," Sam chimed in, pointing with her fork. Danny's grin turned sheepish. The fingertips on his right hand still stung a little. It hadn't been the first time he'd forgotten he couldn't phase anymore and smacked into something either; it had just been the one they'd _seen_.

"Oh yeah!" he said, as a thought occurred to him, clasping his hands together in glee as a grin stretched his face. "I actually have _time_ to study now! Lancer said that if I work hard, maybe do some catchup work, I'll be able to still bring my grades back up."

"_Now_ who sounds like Jazz," Sam muttered.

"You still aiming for being an astronaut, huh?" Tucker said conversationally, eating another handful.

Danny nodded, excitement receding to less ecstatic levels. He glanced to the side, rubbing the back of his neck, before looking back up at them. "I never stopped, guys, it's just… ghosts took priority." They nodded, understanding all too well, as he looked pensive, before brightening again. "But that's all over now."

"I know natural portals are a thing," he said preemptively, as the others opened their mouths in rebuttal. "And I still haven't forgotten _Vlad's _still out there." He scowled at the name. "But I can learn to fight with my parent's equipment when I have to. I don't _need_ powers. You two do it, it can't be _that_ hard, right?" He gave them a hopeful smile. Sam and Tucker exchanged 'oh boy' glances.

"Oh no, it's not hard at all," Sam said brightly, twirling her fork in her salad.

"On a completely unrelated note, I'm going to film your first attempts, you know, for posterity," said Tucker, grinning. Danny's smile wilted a little at the corners. "Okay, okay," he said, holding up his hands placatingly. "At least I'm not the only ghost hunter in the city, though." His friends couldn't not notice the fact he still apparently thought of himself as one. "And I won't be shot at when, _if_, I try to help."

"Speaking of," Sam said, "We haven't seen the Red Huntress lately. That's a little strange."

"Huh," said Tucker as Danny said "Hey, yeah", frowning a little. The conversation moved on to other topics. The food was finished, the trays emptied into the bins, and they left, Tucker walking casually deliberately ahead of the others as they walked to Sam's place.

"Are you sure," she asked Danny, out of the blue. "You're happy with this? You don't… miss it?"

"Sam," he said, a little exasperatedly. "This is a _good_ thing. I'm not going to say I wouldn't do things the same way again, but I'm glad it's _over._ Those two years were… something, and I won't forget I helped people, but I can get on with my _life _now, instead of being stuck doing the same thing over and over like, well, a ghost."

"Alright, just asking," she said. His tone had said plainly to drop it, and for once, she did. But she didn't miss the way he'd glanced wistfully at the sky.


	14. Simulation

: D I don't think this AU needs any more explanation than the fic gives already. It's the result of those insistent inspirations that strike you at 3am.

oooooo

"I've been told you're the one to talk to…" A brief glance at the name tag pinned to the man's chest. "…Nathaniel."

Hands were shaken.

"Please, sir, call me Nathan. And can I just say it's an honor to have you here today? I can't imagine how much of an inconvenience this must have been at short notice…"

A raised hand cut off the beginning of babbling. "At ease, Nathan. It's a routine inspection, not the second coming of Christ."

Nathan's head bobbed. "Of course. Yes. Would you like to see _it_?"

"I very much _would_ like to see what we've been paying for, yes," was the dry response. Nathan laughed nervously.

"Right this way, sir, if you'd just follow me."

The facility was a maze of catwalks and tubing, and the technician navigated it expertly. At some point the man's nervousness had been overtaken by the sheer desire to exposit, and he was doing so animatedly, talking with his hands.

"What I, and more importantly my superiors, want to know is if this thing's going to be battle ready out of the box."

Nathan nodded, ducking a pipe that went off to who knew where. "The boys upstairs have been doing some VR brain upload wizardry. We're able to educate the thing, see how it responds to stimuli, all without the risk of having it out there in the real world before it's ready and while it's still impressionable."

"Bear in mind," he continued. "That when you're talking something as complex as, dare I say it, the human brain, it's not as simple as plug and play. It's going to take what you give it and run with it, expand on it, extrapolate, often retroactively. The boys have been doing a remarkable job of keeping on top of that, and things are absolutely on course, but its lead to some interesting emergent behavior."

His voice echoed as they passed through a cold, large and apparently empty chamber in which steam coiled.

"We decided to start with the infiltration package first. You know, "how to pretend to be an actual human being". Since it turns out that requires a _lot_ of life skills you don't really think about until you find yourself sitting down and coding them, we decided to sync it to actual physical development to mimic how the pathway would normally take place." Nathan scratched his head. "What with the accelerated aging, we've had to compress things a little, but the pattern's taken remarkably well."

As if sensing the imminent "If I wanted the psychology paper I'd read it", he hurried ahead.

"We also recently introduced a package designed to get it used to the abilities it should have… _will_ have. It doubles as a combat simulator, so two birds, one stone. The boys had some fun with that one. Pfft, _ghosts_, can you imagine? Results have been very promising."

"Define _promising_."

Nathan swiped his keycard and as a red light flicked to green with a beep the bolts on a massive circular vault door retracted and allowed its halves to separate. Their faces were bathed with green light as it revealed a massive upright vat nestled in the wiring and tubing that fed in and out of it. The front was clear glass, and a humanoid figure could be seen floating in the strange neon substance emitting the glow, white hair drifting gently. A half mask covered its mouth and nose, and wires ran around its head in parody of a crown. Its limbs twitched fitfully.

"An eighty six percent definitive win conflict rate. A further eleven percent is "outcome unclear"… we're working with a _lot_ of variables here, so victory can be tricky to define. The remaining three percent is "definitive losses", but to be fair most of those have been to a program we turned the dials up on to get a sense of the limits of this thing." Nathan rapped the back of his knuckles on the glass, which made a hollow sound.

It was regarded critically. "And it's rate against _human_ enemy combatants?"

Nathan fidgeted. "Ah, well. We tried moving on to that a while ago and it ended… poorly." He caught the Look he received and flinched, scratching the back of his head. "Poorly in this case meaning a murderous tendency towards _everything_, sir. Uncontrollable. Fortunately the techs managed to erase that pattern back to the backup we had of the previous template, but it was a bit of a close call. We're still working out a way to safely reimplement the concept."

"How long until it's complete?"

Nathan umm'd and err'd with the engineer's aversion to solid dates. "I'd say we're roughly ninety per cent done, sir. We have some kinks to work out; it's always hard to put an estimate on these things, and we'll want to let it age up to look about eighteen… I'd say four months? Five at the most."

A thoughtful nod. Nathan winced as a cigarette was lit and the smoke drawn. "One more question." The smoke was exhaled, and the cigarette pointed at the floating figure. "Should its eyes be open?"

Nathan looked at them, half lidded and glazed. "Ah, that happens sometimes, sir. It's harmless; just like sleepwalking. It'll occasionally incorporate things into the program, but it doesn't actually _see_… us…"

He trailed off. While speaking he'd been wiping at a smear on the glass with his thumb, and he froze as the movement was _tracked._ He slowly looked up, into a green gaze that was suddenly blazing with lucid clarity that absolutely should not be present, and swallowed as it left him and flicked to the other man, who to his credit held it unflinchingly, before roving around the inside of the containment unit.

"Oh shit." He'd seen enough movies to know where this was going.

The glass shattered.


	15. Lions

This was inspired by phantomrose96's fic A Right To Know on tumblr, which left me staring at the ceiling for a while and which I sadly can't link without ffn throwing a tizzy. It's possible for this to be read without it, of course, but I really do recommend it.

oooooo

He'd expected an ominous castle. Some kind of dank lair. Not some messy teenager's room. And not the glowing teenager in it, glaring at him but otherwise making no move to attack.

"You don't _look_ evil," slipped out of his mouth before he really thought about it.

"That's because I'm _not_," it said tersely. "Go away, _Ghost Boy._" The last two words were said with far too much bitterness to not have a story behind them, and his curiosity, which had lead him here in the first place, was piqued.

"You've heard of me?"

"Everyone in the ghost zone's heard of you. Go _away_." It moved forward to slam the door but fortunately it opened outward and he kept a firm grip on the knob.

"No," he said as firmly as he dared. "I want to know why Father didn't want me talking to you."

That gave it pause. "He told you not to talk to me? _Of course he did._" A scowl, and then something vaguely approaching a smile. "So you went and did it anyway?" There was a sense of approval in the words. It took a step back and turned, examining something on the wall, and he took this as an indication to come inside, although he still stayed within easy reach of the door. "You're _really_ lucky I'm not evil, kid."

It was really weird to be called kid by someone who looked the same age as him. "One must always consider all of the evidence in every aspect impartially before making a decision," he quoted.

The ghost still wasn't looking at him as it sat down in the chair at the desk, lounging back in it. "Did he tell you that? What's your name?"

"Daniel," Daniel said.

The ghost smacked his forehead. "_Of course. Why not!?"_ A fist banged on the desk, cracking it and causing him to jump. The ghost caught his expression and looked mildly apologetic.

"Two Dannys, that's going to get confusing," it said. There was a wistful sadness in the words.

"_Daniel_," Daniel corrected, to the ghost's raised eyebrow. He didn't like the shortening. "Two?"

"He named you after me," the ghost said shortly, leaning on the desk and propping its head up on its arm. "And I'd bet you anything I'm the reason you are like you are now."

That was… news. Why would his Father name him after someone he'd said was evil? It didn't make sense. The words "_Don't believe its lies,"_ ran through his head again, but he shook his head, dismissing them.

"No, that was an…"

"Accident?" The ghost gave a laugh that held absolutely no humor in it, turning and looking again at the wall, and now he was closer he could see it was a very badly damaged photo. Deliberately damaged. "Well, accidents happen."

Doubt crawled across him. He rubbed his arm. "Even if it _was_ deliberate, it's a good thing, okay? These powers make me so much more. They're a gift, and Father's helping me hone it."

"If you say so," the ghost said with disinterest, gaze not leaving the photo. It sounded tired.

Something about that rankled. "I _do_ say so. Who are you, anyway?"

"Danny, like I said." They both knew that was sidestepping the question, and he scowled and pressed again.

"_Who. Are. You._" The ghost's gaze flicked to him, roved over his face and then left. "Were," it said. "I was your half brother. Happy now?" It glared at him. He was getting the sense that whatever welcomeness he'd gotten from defying his Father was slipping away rapidly.

"No," he said, pressing ahead anyway before it was lost completely. "Father never said anything about me having a half brother." It wasn't quite an accusation. Piercing green irises focused on him.

"He hasn't said a lot of things," it said sharply. "Shouldn't you be _going_?"

"No," he said again, as stubbornly as he could muster. "I want to hear those things first."

So it told him. What it told him was new and shocking and _interesting_. He hadn't missed the way the ghost's gloved fingers curled into claws that unheedingly bit deep into the desk's wood during the telling, or the way the temperature dropped like a stone even as its aura intensified. It looked at him, and its eyes were solid green.

He didn't know if it was all true. Ultimately, it didn't matter. The knowledge that his and his Mother's welfare was all that was standing in the way of his Father's gruesome murder dropped into his mind, disturbing and uncomfortable and heavy and more importantly _dangerous_, like holding nuclear weaponry. And heady. He realized what the giddy feeling was; that of holding _power_.

"You should have killed him," he blurted out.

That got the ghost's attention, and quickly. It raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, no, forget I said anything..." he hastily backpedaled.

"You said it," the ghost said. "Why?"

He fidgeted. It wasn't hard to look nervous and uncertain if he should go on, because he _was_ nervous and uncertain he should go on. "It's just… he's… not the most _forgiving_ Father. He's… controlling. Man… manipulative, even, maybe." It wasn't a lie, and neither was the difficulty in saying it. "He prevents Mother from ghost hunting, and I can see it kills her inside to not be able to. And when he's unhappy, with either of us, he…"

"He _what?_" the ghost hissed, and it was an actual hiss, anger making it look steadily more inhuman.

He licked his lips, flashed back to human, and carefully lifted his shirt, just enough to show the bruises, before dropping it and transforming back. Truthfully, they were from training, rather than anything _really_ serious, in his opinion. His Father had never hit him in anger, although there had been times he was scared he was going to, watching Father clearly forcefully restraining himself. As for Mother, he was never anything less than oozingly sweet to her, and had certainly never even thought about raising a hand to her.

The implication was enough. He watched a fire dulled to embers spark to new life in the ghost's eyes.

"_I'm going to kill him_," it said, with such rock hard certainty that he had no doubt it was true. Any hesitation or second thoughts over what he'd just done were fruitless now; he had pressed the button, launched that rocket, and now it was simply a matter of waiting for the explosion.

The ghost flew out of the door and across the swirling green depths of the ghost zone on a flight path as straight as an arrow at such speeds that he had difficulty keeping up, and he had been told he was one of the fastest flyers Father had ever seen. He watched the ghost slash the inflatable purple football that covered his Father's portal with its claws as it went past, an act of petty spitefulness he could appreciate, and followed after it.

The sounds of battle were already raging by the time he entered the mansion. It was fortunate Mother was out. He phased up through the ceiling to see what was going on.

Both combatants already sported heavy injuries. Father was transformed; pink and green ectoplasm splattered the study. It dripped from wounds and claws. While the injuries each had inflicted were severe, it was clear that his Father was about to finish the ghost off.

He fired, the ectoblast scoring a direct hit on his back. The distraction was enough for the tables to turn, and with a final strike pink and green gave way to arterial red as his Father involuntarily transformed back. He alit on the ground and walked over to where his Father lay choking on it as the ghost watched unfazed.

"I… told you… boy… not to… listen." his Father managed to gurgle. He smiled, and leaned down, and whispered so that only his Father could hear. "_Long live the king."_ He saw a brief flicker of horrified understanding, and maybe, he would imagine later, pride, in his Father's face before it went slack, eyes unfocused.

Everything was his now.


	16. Autoimmune

Someone in the tumblr tag came up with the idea of Danny's body initially rejecting his ectoplasm, and I really, really wish I knew who they were so I can credit them for this inspiration they have wrought.

oooooo

The rest of the family going away for three days on a ghost hunting trip had been a good thing. He'd just turned fourteen, and according to his parents that apparently meant he was mature enough to look after the house on his own for the long weekend. He'd been given a list of emergency numbers to call as they'd be out of cellphone range, his mom had made sure there was enough food in the fridge, and finally he'd received a token injunction not to get into any trouble. He'd said of course he wouldn't, who did you take him for, he was _fourteen_.

So of course, like any teenager under these circumstances, as soon as the Fenton RV was out of sight (he'd waved mischievously cheerfully at a clearly disgruntled Jazz from the kitchen window) he immediately went and did something he shouldn't have.

He'd snuck down to the lab. (His dad had barged through the door so many times it had warped slightly and if you knew where to push it opened like a dream even when locked to its fullest extent.)He'd been _planning_ this. He and Jazz didn't have much to do with his parent's obsession at the best of times, existing in separate orbits that conveniently happened to coincide at the kitchen table, but they'd been boasting about and working on the portal for _months_, and he'd been there for the field test. The actual mechanics involved behind the dark tunnel that did nothing but spark he didn't quite get, but the heartbreak in their eyes needed no spelling out.

So. He'd gone to see what he could do. He hadn't been sure _what_ that was (out of all the half remembered lectures he'd been dragged to the bits that had mainly stuck with him were those concerned with _levitation_ and _propulsion_ and he still remembered the disappointment of the day when he realized his parents weren't ever going to make a rocket, even a ghost powered one) but thought maybe it was something simple that they'd overlooked, that even _he_ could find and fix. It wasn't that unlikely; sometimes they'd get so caught up in a thing they missed the forest for the trees.

So. He'd see if that was true. Imagine the look on his parent's faces when they came back and found the thing they'd slaved so hard over, working. And he'd tell them it was him and they'd scold him but knowing them also be really proud.

That had been the plan.

Danny was _really_ _regretting_ the plan.

Because it was the evening of the first day, and the portal had _done_ something to him, and he wasn't sure what exactly (he'd thought he was a ghost for a second but that might have been a hallucination?) but he was feeling really ill, and sure there were the emergency numbers, but he was pretty sure none of them could help because this was _The Exorcist_ levels of sick. _Puking up ectoplasm_ sick.

Oh, and the portal was working. That was a minor detail by now. He moaned and shivered, drawing the blankets closer as his body flipped to the 'freezing chills' side of the rollercoaster ride between that and fever heat that had been coming in waves for some time now.

He whimpered, feeling his stomach churn and roil again. No matter how many times he threw up (and the side of the bed facing him and the floor underneath it were splattered with that viscous acrid green because he'd taken a sudden turn for the worse and become too shaky and weak to even _try_ and make it to the bathroom or downstairs for a bucket) there always was _more_ of it. He was pretty sure he had to have thrown up his own bodyweight of the stuff by now; where was it all coming from!? He was _sick_ of it.

The scent of it, burnt rotten copper sweet acid, assaulted his nostrils and sent a wave of nausea rolling through him again. He gave in and retched over the side of the bed, and it was a momentary relief as he lay there panting before a shudder wracked him again. The blankets did nothing.

He needed his parents. Heck, he _wanted_ his parents. They'd know what this was, know what to _do._ They were also uncontactable for two days. All he could do was hold on and hope he'd last that long.

That first night, Danny, somehow, managed to catch some sleep in between bouts of adding to the rapidly growing green puddle doing who knew what to the carpet and it was gross and creepy as hell to see it glow in the dark like that. His dreams were fevered incoherent nightmares, broken and fragmented, and all he could really remember after waking was cruel laughter and light on metal and neon green. He was starting to really _hate_ that colour.

Right now, the illness had tipped back into fever, and he'd tossed all his blankets aside and the amount of effort it had taken to do so even motivated by stifling heat had scared him. Every inch of him, _every_ inch, was sore and itchy, and the skin he could see on the arm in front of him was red and inflamed and _actually_ _peeling off _like he'd been sunburned, but the light coming through the curtains, although it stung his eyes far more than it should have and would have practically forced him to squint if his eyelids weren't swollen enough to do that already, shouldn't have been anywhere near enough to do that.

Anything he touched _hurt_ to touch. There was no good position to take; he'd settled on his side near the edge of the bed only because moving was a Herculean task right now. He was really, really hungry, ravenous more like, but even the thought of eating made him feel ill, iller, let alone whether he'd actually be _able_ to.

Sickness had a scent. The dying had a scent. He'd been to the hospital several times, once for a broken arm as a result of jumping out of a tree, and in some wards the ever present smell of disinfectant wasn't enough to drown it out. He was panting in the hopes of cooling down even a little, even though that was making his already dry mouth even drier and that's what his breath smelled and tasted of. Acetone, sickness and death. And ectoplasm, but _everything_ smelled of that by this point. The sheets stuck to him, sweat sticky, and the salt in it on raw skin _stung_ like nothing else.

He wished the cold would come back and maybe numb the pain at least a little. That wish was also something he was regretting an hour later, as the involuntary shivers that wracked him unavoidably dragged cloth across burn and he could no longer muster the strength to pull back the blankets. The pain was worst in his chest, coalescing slightly to his right side, and breathing was starting to become a little painful on top of everything else. Over the course of the next three hours he watched with alarm as gradually more steam started to come from his mouth until every exhale had it coming out in plumes like he'd been smoking. Did it have a blue tinge? He must have been imagining that.

Beads of ectoplasm exuded from his skin and enlarged until they became droplets that oozed down it only to be replaced by more welling up. In texture it felt like being covered in an increasingly thicker layer of green mucus, made worse by the sheets sopping it up like a sponge and not letting go of it.

It was cold, but it was _worse_ than salt. His tears were ectoplasm too.

By the time he started coughing it up, his eyes were completely gummed and swollen shut, and he couldn't tell what time it was. It felt like an eternity, but the sounds outside sounded like evening? Maybe? He'd lost any ability to distinguish by temperature, or even between cold so cold it burned and heatwaves that felt like being flashfrozen. He'd held on as long as he could, but had had to relieve himself, and while he probably would ordinarily be mortified he was by now too tired to care. About anything, really. He felt like he was made of molten lead, or liquid nitrogen, in a balloon stretched to bursting with no space for air.

Every breath was a struggle, and wheezed and whistled with every success. The ectoplasm filling his lungs faster than he could hack it out _sloshed_ every time his chest moved. He was starting to get lightheaded, and the idea of unconsciousness was a relief, and he'd leave the question of if he'd wake up unanswered, because maybe that was preferable.

_Just kill me already_, he thought, and the pain centered in his chest _spiked_ as if responding to it, and that was the last straw; he went under into darkness.

He was really surprised to wake up.

He was even more really surprised to wake up _fine_. Thoughts clear, if beginning to race, breathing free and easy, and no pain. Well, a sort of general dull fading ache, but it was more like the pleasant burn after a long day of activity than the searing agony that had, to him, been raging through and across him a second ago. For a horrible, horrible second he thought he might really have died and turned into a ghost but no that was definitely blood rushing through his ears under the command of a heartbeat. He sighed in relief. And realized he was really, really thirsty.

Moving was amazingly effortless, but unpleasant for an entirely different reason. Apparently all the ectoplasm in his blurry fragmented memories of the past 48 hours had not miraculously disappeared like everything else but had instead dried and scabbed on the side exposed to air to create a cocoon sealing in a layer of ooze the consistency of really stubborn tomato sauce.

"Ewwww," he said, voice sounding a little raw, sitting up and trying to pick it off him to find that it was clinging to hair pretty determinedly and putting any more force into doing so would effectively wax him. "Shower," he muttered, getting to his feet. His legs shook a little, but held, and he made his way to the bathroom on autopilot. Fortunately, hot water seemed to be enough to get rid of the gunk, and he was finally able to open his eyes. So he'd drunk some of the water from the showerhead, so what. It wasn't going to kill him.

He allowed himself to relax under the warm spray. Everything was back to normal; he'd recovered.

This feeling lasted until he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Or rather, didn't.


	17. Long Live The Halfa

This is a bit of a simultaneous potato, since this is getting posted on tumblr at the same time. It technically counts! I wrote this a while ago, and any christmasness is completely unintentional, honest. This is sort of an AU where Danny was a halfa to start with due to ectoplasmic exposure in the womb, but his powers only manifest as he gets older. Needless to say, he doesn't remember the following events, and finding a very hidden treasure trove in his house one day by falling through a floor sure is a surprise.

ooooooo

They were not there when he was born.

It was, Clockwork felt, a poor idea to introduce the child to the populace of the ghost zone's unique brand of enthusiasm until he was ready. Moreover, that young, an infant was constantly tended to, and needed that attention.

"It is time," he declared when he felt the child could withstand it, the leaving of his tower being itself a momentous occasion and causing the gathering of ghosts far and wide to hear his proclamation. "The ghost child has been born. We will pay our respects."

There was cheering from some, booing from others, and indifference from more. As soon as ruckus had died down, and this in and of itself took three days as the some declared this was a good excuse to party, and the gifts to give had been gathered, they were no longer where they were. A room with blue walls, and a white crib. A mobile of cut out ghosts hung above it.

"I have extended the time," Clockwork said, leaning on his staff like the old man he looked like. "We will not be disturbed."

_And I, the space_, came a voice that was less sound and more meaning embedded into the background radiation of the universe. _We will not crowd him._

And then the gift giving began.

"He is the son of the two humans most feared by our kind," Skulker said solemnly, leaning a black recurve bow against the crib. "He will become a great hunter, or a worthy prey."

"I want to play with him," Youngblood said, the skeleton companion in as close to human form as he could get next to him nodding. The little ghost peered over the top of the crib. "Wow, he's tiny."

"And that is why you cannot," Skulker said, lifting him up by the back of his shirt and hauling him with him as he returned to the crowd.

"Aw, phooey."

"Yet. He will grow."

"Sweet! Oh, Bonesy, what were we going to give him, a promise to play?"

The skeleton, still standing next to the crib, clacked his jaw. "That can be from you. I'll give him these." And it pulled the knucklebones from its left hand with its right and placed them next to the bow before leaving.

Ember, when it was her turn, was less than enthused. "I don't see why everyone's so hyped up about you, kid. That should be my name they're chanting." Sensing disapproval, which she allowed to roll off her, she continued. "But I guess if you can do it this young maybe you'll actually be _cool_ later. Maybe you'll be a singer or something, who cares. Ember out." A microphone joined the steadily enlarging pile of gifts as she stalked off.

The representatives from Aragon were next, and everyone in the room knew that did not bode well.

"This is for you," Dora whispered, carefully placing a woven bracelet around the sleeping child's wrist. "It will protect you from harm."

"Sister, _dear_, you cannot give this boy something this sissy like a bracelet! He will grow to be a knight! What will others think!"

"Brother, be quiet! He is _sleeping_."

Lord Aragon ignored her. "_Pfah_," he roared, quite literally, and the boy in the crib began to make fitful noises. "He will need a weapon, and a fine one! I bestow this on you," he declared, taking a sword with a purple pommel stone in a black sheath from his belt and taking care to place it on the _top_ of the pile before storming off, nose in the air and a tail snaking behind him.

His sister hissed at his retreating back through a mouthful of fangs, and rocked the crib until the boy calmed. "Yeesh, what a drama queen," muttered Poindexter next to her, and she contained a snicker.

"Uh…" the monochrome ghost continued, addressing the crib. "I don't own much but… I can promise that any school bully who bullies you will receive their comeuppance!"

A shadow loomed over him, and he looked up into the helmeted eyes of the Fright Knight. He and Dora carefully returned to the crowd.

"You have been given a sword," a voice rumbled. "And it is a fine one. But a sword without the skill to wield it is a worthless lump of metal." There was an indignant smokey snort from the black dragon in the back. The Fright Knight turned and stared at it until it cowered. "At such time as you are grown, you may seek me out and receive lessons in knighthood, but I will not be lenient in them. That is all."

There was a unconscious collective sigh of relief as he left.

"I, THE GREAT AND MIGHTY BOOOOX GHOOOOST, WILL GIVE YOU… THIS BOX OF BOXES!"

"Dearie, you look a bit peaky. You can come on down to my lair for cookies any time."

"We didn't get you anything, sorry kiddo." "These old bones hated just flying here lemme tell you." "Here, have this guy's fez." "_Oi!_"

"His dreams shall be wonders, and his nightmares brief."

"These glasses will let him see the true form of anything."

"You better not break any _rules_, little punk, or we'll be having a talk." There was a hiss of _Walker!_ "In the meantime, this is for any citizen's arrests." A pair of handcuffs and their key clinked onto the pile. "Don't disappoint me."

"Oh, what's this?" A sickly sweet voice sounded, and caused a flurry of whispers. _Spectra. Who invited her?_ The curve of a black claw ran down the boy's cheek, and, perhaps sensing the close presence of something malevolent, he began to whimper. "So cute! So precious! The depth of emotion of a human, flavoured with the _power_ of a ghost? Oh, his misery will be _exquisite_!" This time, the claws stroked his scalp, points _almost _on the verge of causing pain. A second whimper, and little eyes fluttered open. In the form of a cougar lying on the floor to the side Bertrand watched, tail swishing idly.

"_Spectra_." Frostbite, who had been patiently waiting for his turn, intoned reproachfully. "Leave the child alone. This is a time for giving, not taking."

"Ah, but I _am_ giving him something! A very valuable lesson, that none of _you_ would teach!" Frightened blue eyes stared up at a grinning fanged face as a black tail coiled around the crib. "_We're not all nice_." she crooned in an ear, claws tickling at his throat. "_We're not helpful faires, we are _ghosts." She snapped her teeth an inch from his face, and he began to cry. She laughed.

"That is _enough!_" Frostbite roared, grabbing her and tossing her some distance to the floor. "_Out!_ You have disgraced this very event!"

"I suppose it is my turn now?" Bertrand said smoothly as Spectra hmmphed and dusted herself off. "You all of you are pretending that his parents won't destroy everything you've given him. But," he purred, changing form to something like a vulture, to the feather ruffling of the _actual_ vultures, and perching on the corner. "Here is something only he will be able to see." And with that, he plucked out a wing feather and let it drop into the crib, where the crying boy hiccupped and grasped at it with tiny fingers, before flying off to join Spectra as she left.

Frostbite sent a glare at them as they did so, and carefully removed the feather before it could get stuck in a mouth, placing it on the pile. Fingers grasped the white fur of his arm as the boy continued to whimper from the encounter. He smiled. "Hush, little one. This is for you." He held out a necklace made entirely of bright blue ice clear enough to be mistaken for glass. The sounds stopped as the boy became mesmerized by the interplay of light and reached for it, and Frostbite chuckled and placed it around his neck. It shrunk to fit comfortably, unmelting under the body heat and cool rather than cold. "You will have much in common with us one day, I think," the yeti murmured. "This will help you find us when it is time."

The plasmics were next. Ghosts that had never been human. Ghosts that never took humanish form or mind. A careful eye was kept on them, for they could inadvertently harm though misunderstanding. The departed remains of lost pets thronged the crib, as did green things with claws and fangs, curious, pressed together almost into one, drawn by scent or heat or emotion. The behemoth even left his post to come see the child, although he had to be quickly shooed back to it. Very few gifts were given; very few could understand the concept or were able to follow it, but their presence was enough. They parted as Clockwork floated up.

"I give you the most priceless gift anyone can receive; a future," he said, smiling as he shifted from a child to an adult. The tip of the staff met the boy's forehead with the lightest of touches.

_And I have been privileged to be allowed to see it, _the white furred form sitting next to him said, greatly confusing SETI some miles away. _And I have seen you love me, so I will love you in return. _A lolling green tongue slipped between fangs and licked the boy's face. _The sky will always be clear when you wish to gaze upon me, and you will see every celestial event you care to name at least once in your lifetime._

There was a pause, in which an ear flicked, and it continued in a whisper that merely meant a reduction of bandwidth to the warbling of radio. _And if your parents happen to leave any ectocooked meat lying around… I wouldn't say no to table scraps._

"Oh, get away, you old dog," Clockwork said, smacking a furry rump firmly with the end of his staff as one of the few that could actually land a hit on the creature, although he was smiling as he did so. The dog merely laughed as it bounded and teleported away.

The gathered masses were preparing to leave when the door opened, and Vlad came in in a swirl of cape, causing a halt and a susurrus.

"_Plasmius._ You are not welcome here."

"I merely came to give my gift to the boy. Or am I not _allowed?_"

"Your designs on the child are known. Leave."

"I have every right to be here, and to participate, and you know that," Plasmius hissed. "I will not, and you cannot make me. Now," he continued, walking to the crib. "Let me see my godson."

Those that had defensively gathered around it reluctantly parted, watching like hawks. Vlad smiled down at the child, and it was a horrifying expression. "We are the only two of our kind, you and I. I will be as a mentor to you, and instruct you in our ways. This, I promise." There was an uneasy chorus amongst the crowd. Ghosts took promises very seriously. They chained fate. "And one day, I hope, a better father than that oaf."

And with that, he made his dramatic exit, vanishing in a poof of cloak. The ghosts dispersed, and time once again passed normally.

The door opened, and Danny cooed up at his mother surrounded by more ectoartefacts than she had seen in her lifetime. 


	18. Bonus: New Weapon

Merry Christmas, MsFrizzle! This little piece of body horror is for you, and apparently was my brain's warm up to Autoimmune. Thank you for all your reviews, which are always insightful, and apparently I have you to partially thank for the Sacrifice AU. : )

I should write Valerie more often.

oooooo

It was an occurance Valerie was familiar with now. Two ectosignatures, one a seven point two, the other much lower, usually a two or three. One by the time she got there, and if she didn't move fast enough, none. It was infuriating how the ghost boy would just show her up and then drop off her radar like that, and how many other ghosts had this ability? She'd never know.

These were thoughts for 3am in the morning, though, and were not conducive to hunting in the here and now so she shoved them aside and canvassed the nearby alleys, moving slowly to minimize the whine of her board. She found the site of the fight; minimal collateral damage and crumpled cardboard scattered around meant the Box Ghost.

The ectosignature flickered, and immediately grasped her attention. _That_ was not normal; it was either there or it wasn't. She tapped the screen and ran a quick diagnostic, only to see it flicker again, this time disappearing for longer before stuttering back. She'd seen something like it when reviewing the datalogs of what she mentally dubbed the Masters Incident, and the similarity chilled her.

The ghost boy was destabilizing like his cousin. She kicked her board into higher gear and sped towards the stated coordinates as the small dot disappeared completely. She wasn't entirely sure what she was going to do when she got there, but first she'd get there.

oooo

It had been routine. See your breath, ask to use the bathroom, be out the door to the sigh of a long suffering Lancer, transform and search for whatever ghost was causing havoc this time. Today it was the Box Ghost again, whose capture Danny had gotten down to an art, and as he capped the thermos and spun it on his finger he thought happily that he'd been quick enough that using the bathroom could actually seem like a legitimate excuse.

He was flying back invisible to avoid paparazzi and was just getting his speed when it happened. A sudden roiling pain in his gut, like he'd just been punched, and he slammed into the ground, moaning. Sweat beaded on his skin as he tried to stand up, leaning on a nearby wall for support. It came out of nowhere; one moment fine and suddenly he was feverish, weak, and feeling worse with each passing second. A stabbing headache and a sort of whole body prickling pins and needles destroyed his ability to focus. Pure animal instinct took over; he was hurt, somehow, so he had to _hide_.

He staggered into a nearby alley, barely noticing when he transformed back, and grabbed a nearby pipe for support. He shivered involuntarily, panting, thoughts clearing enough to wonder _blood blossoms? _before another wave of agony hit him and he fell hard against the wall. He could feel his eyes burn intermittent green, the light flickering off the concrete like a dying searchlight. And that pins and needles feeling had only intensified, and now it felt like every inch of him, inside and out, was on fire. He bit back a scream. _Hide_.

His nerveless hand slipped and he fell to his knees, and this time really did scream as the movement dislodged something inside of him. He hurled, and radioactive green splattered on the concrete, syrup sticky and tasting of chilled bittersweet batteries. He shuddered, eyes wide, hands clasped over his mouth, tried to swallow down another rising tide of the stuff, and failed. And failed again. And again.

He had no idea how long he was there, front flecked with green, arms barely doing a good job of stopping him from falling face first in the increasingly larger puddle. He felt raw, empty, the pain having died down to a burning ache. He exhaled, and fell back onto his haunches. He was soaked with sweat.

He clutched at his chest as something intangibly moved within it. It dropped into his stomach like a stone and he groaned. He coughed harshly. Had his throat not been previously numbed by the cold ectoplasm he quite likely would have screamed, with unpleasant results. It was frostbite all the way up.

After the ordeal an orb the size of a baseball floated inches above his cupped hands, blue white, brightly luminescent and dripping green. He stared at it numbly. Then it clicked.

He'd thrown up his own core.

_He'd thrown up his own core._

Danny had never really immersed himself in ghost culture but he still knew that was ten different levels of _messed up_. A small sort of horrified laugh bubbled up in the back of his throat only to be cut short when the ball flickered, dulled, and fell into his hands, flash freezing them. He yelped and dropped it, and this turned out to have been the right thing to do as the previously inert ectoplasm reached up to meet it. He scooted backwards from it, used the wall to pull himself up into a somewhat standing position and watched as the bioluminescence drew itself up, began to form a shape, colour...

Green eyes opened, and his ghost half looked at him with confusion, and then down at himself with steadily mounting horror.

"Oh _god._ Ew! Gross! _Ew!_" He stepped backwards from where he had formed, and Danny couldn't help laughing at the look on his face. The chuckle turned into a hacking cough. "You're… telling me," he choked out, and then fell forward.

"D… _Fenton!_"

Danny managed to catch his unconscious other half before he smashed his nose on the cement, but it was a close call. He propped him up, and got a good look at him. The verdict was that, to put not too fine a point on it, he looked like shit. Blistered fingers, skin a sickly pale colour, drenched clothes and shallow breathing that sounded labored and pained. Forget school, they had to get home and figure out whatever this was and sort it out before something _worse_ happened as it always tended to do.

As if he'd thought the magic words, there was the whine of a charging blaster behind him and he slowly turned around, raising the hand that wasn't keeping his human half from performing a faceplant. Valerie. If he'd had blood, it would have drained from his face.

_How much did she see?_


	19. Bonus: Comet

Merry Christmas, IvyVine6! I thought you might enjoy this. Thank you for the novel experience of actually having a _fan_, your reviews and PMs never fail to make me smile. I hope you like it. : )

oooooo

They say that longevity technology can only go so far, for the human brain is only capable of retaining four hundred years worth of memory. This is around the time that all organs fail simultaneously, instead of just one being the cause of death by 'old age'. Nobody has said anything about the memory of halfas, because of course, no one remembers they exist.

It has been roughly two hundred and sixteen years since Danny Phantom left Earth for the stars, and he has never looked back. It's not all been in a straight line; he spent a few years in the asteroid belt and while he missed Jupiter completely due to its location on the other side of its orbit, he did spot, and make a course deviation towards, Saturn. He spent at least thirty years exploring its rings and moons, and once decided to see what was inside the planet itself, racing the day/night line before diving in.

Buffeted by winds exceeding anything of the like on Earth, and in a fog that only got denser and thicker as gravity inexorably reeled him in, he became lost and disoriented, and only escaped being made a permanent addition to a liquid hydrogen core by the freedom of intangibility. It took him months to find his way back to the surface and free space, after which he decided he'd seen all he was interested in there and moved on.

Having now forgotten exactly why he began his journey in the first place, which was itself the point, his primary motivation to continue has been that indefatigable human desire to see what's over the next hill, or giant floating hunk of rock as the case may be. It was the periods of explorational excitement that kept him going through the increasingly larger long boring stretches of nothing in particular with a pretty backdrop.

It was during one of these intervals of transit, after he'd spent some time seeing which stars he recognized and naming some more he didn't, that he became somewhat introspective. Space was cold, incredibly so unless he got too close to a star in which case it was unbearably hot, which hadn't happened in some time. His core reveled in it, seemed to thrive on it. What therefore puzzled him was a strange sort of sleeping heat curled next to it. It was hard to notice; he probably wouldn't ever have if he didn't have so little to do, but it was _there_, and it stayed there, an enigma.

In his mind's eye he could almost see it, nestled paradoxically against the icy cool sphere of his core. It wasn't so linearly defined in shape, and it was more subdued. Hibernating. He prodded it.

A ring of light snapped out around him, startling him. It split, and he watched in fascination as they began to move; he'd never seen a celestial body with _two_ rings before.

Where they passed though, it became quickly apparent something was terribly wrong. The omnipresent chill of space, something soothing but usually ignored, became biting. He would have whimpered, had the rings not slipped over his head and feet and disappeared. Danny choked instead. He desperately needed _something_ which wasn't there, and instincts long dormant were raging at him to get it, _now_. He couldn't fly. He couldn't move. He felt like he was freezing solid and burning up at the same time.

He felt his grip on consciousness rapidly slipping away, and panicked. The spike of adrenalin was enough to hold the blackness back as he mentally scrabbled for his still mercifully there core, clinging to it tightly. He wanted whatever this was to _stop_.

As if by command, the rings appeared again, and where they traveled the pain disappeared, leaving only a residual ache. He curled up around himself and just drifted for a time, panting vacuum heavily, not knowing why but disinclined to stop. The entire experience had lasted only a few seconds, but confused and terrified him badly.

He uncurled after what felt like an eon, and looked around at the stars. Space was huge compared to him, a tiny speck, and he'd always known this. But while the vastness of the void had previously seemed full of promise, an eternity of new things to find and see, now it seemed patient, empty and threatening. It made him realize just how alone he was, that there was nothing else like him in all this expanse.

There was a wave of unindentifiable longing, and it took him a while to translate it.

_I want to go home._

ooo

Almost as soon as he thought it, the sentiment seemed strange. 'Home' was a word with little context beyond the vague idea that maybe it was a place with whatever it was he'd needed in that short scary time. He wheeled around, looking for anything that might give a clue to its location; he'd been there once, he was sure of it, and realized with a jerk of discomfort that he was lost.

He forced himself to calm down. He'd retrace his steps. Easy.

It turned out to be more difficult than he'd thought. Retracing your steps is difficult enough when the distances involved are smaller than a planet, and Danny's memories were more filled with whatever had caught his interest than complicated mental star charts, although there were thankfully enough to make the task easier. Things in space also have an unfortunate tendency to _move_ at great speeds, and he often wasted time trying to catch things he'd been to at different points in their orbits.

While the desire had not faded and in fact had only grown stronger with time, there were several times he was unable to find the next step, and he despaired. Slowly but surely, though, he made his way to the star Sol.

Six months after he'd passed the asteroid belt, and he hovered far above a blue green planet. As soon as he'd seen it, he unequivocally knew this was the place. He wasn't the only thing floating here, and he went over to the closest object to examine it. Small and made of metal, with strange angles and markings to it, and two winglike sets of golden brown squares extending to either side. _Solar panels_, he thought, and spent some time pushing the _satellite_, that was it, in and out of its orbit. He set it spinning with a light tap, and wondered if anyone would mind if he kept it. He'd always wanted one in his room.

He paused a little at the strange train of thought, before shrugging and angling himself so that Earth was above, halting his sideways movement and allowing gravity to tug at him. He grinned as he began to pick up speed. This was going to be great.

He could, of course, go intangible and bypass the question of air resistance completely, but where was the fun in that? His only concession to not having his face smashed into interesting shapes was a small, thin green shield in front of him, vaguely conical in shape. He began to add his own power to his movement, rapidly accelerating and hitting the first edges of the atmosphere.

The shield juddered, but held. Flames began to lick around it as the increasingly thicker air compressed and ignited, rapidly expanding to a full comet tail. He pushed himself to go even faster, the vibration rattling his arms and teeth, getting more and more intense until there was a crack and a boom and suddenly he was rocketing through layers of cloud as behind him the flames flared bright white and electric green.

Had he not been over the ocean at the time, occupants of a city would have been knocked to the ground, windows would have been shattered and the concrete and asphalt of pavements and roads would have cracked at the ectoplasm laced onslaught. As it was, the only effects were a temporary disruption of the wave pattern, an incredibly petrified seagull, and several thousand miles away the whirr of something long disused and forgotten coming to life and sending out a signal as it had been taught.

Just as he was about to smash into the sea, which for a Danny used to astral distances and speeds was still a good half kilometer up, he banked into a sharp ninety degree angle turn and began speeding horizontally, dismissing the shield and leaving a Deloreanesque trail of green flame in his wake. _Show off_, something muttered in the back of his head in a voice not his own, but he ignored it. Everything around him was a dizzying combination of enticingly new and comfortingly familiar, and he immersed himself in the joy of flight.

He flew over a set of cliffs, and was almost immediately fascinated by the green. This was as good a place to land as any, and after a confusing moment of remembering how legs worked after spending so long with only a spectral tail he was standing on the ground, feeling gravity holding him there.

He walked for the novelty of it, and came across a small stand of trees, going over to one of them and placing a gloved hand on the bark. Once again, here was a thing like nothing he'd seen in his sojourn, but it was grown, not made. He took a mental snapshot of it, and continued on in a direction perpendicular to the sun.

The thought crept up on him; that if this _was_ home, and everything he knew was telling him it was, would it be safe to do the rings again? He shuddered at the memory of burning cold and helplessness. This place was near a star, though. While his temperature sense wasn't great, he could still tell it was a lot warmer than open space.

He hesitantly poked the strange warm spot and tensed, ready to turn back the moment anything started to hurt. The rings snapped out, split, and traveled with no incident. So far, so good. There was a tingling sensation as they moved, and the areas passed over suddenly _felt_ more sharply, like a lens coming into focus, but there was no pain. The rings disappeared, and he stood there blinking for a second before a burning sensation began to build up in his chest. There was that _need_ again. He struggled against it unsure what to do, before an inbuilt command overrode him; _breathe_.

His mouth opened, his chest expanded, air was drawn in, and the pain _disappeared_. More than that, the sensation was amazing, like breathing in nectar. He tried it of his own volition this time, gulping greedily, and then coughed.

He realized he'd been leaning against a tree; the rough bark scratching at his skin. Everything was so… _more_ like this. He felt warm, which was new, and the heat was something from both inside him and outside, when sunlight hit his skin. He could feel it almost drinking the light in, taking it and doing… what, he didn't know. _Solar panels_, he thought, and laughed, before bringing a hand up to his chest in surprise as it moved. Another found its way to an ear. Sound, he'd heard before when he touched something, travelling up his arms, or when he was in an atmosphere, but he couldn't remember _making_ it, not like that. This was yet another thing to add to the growing list of novelties. Another was the pulse the hand on his chest found, feeling it through skin and cloth, a constant _tick tick tick._

He had no idea what that was for. It didn't matter.

He laughed again and jumped up, intending to get above the trees and bask in the sunshine. To his utter surprise he completely failed to get airborne and crashed awkwardly into the twig covered dirt. _There_ was the pain, he thought. He groaned and sat up, fleetingly hoping no one saw that. His palms stung, covered with grit and a red liquid seeping through gashes in the skin. He wiped it hard on the blue cloth covering his legs and immediately regretted it, gritting his teeth as the pain only increased. Next thing he knew his hand was in his mouth and he was licking it. One of those odd instincts, he guessed, thankfully not as insistent as the one to breathe, but still weird. The red liquid tasted salty, and that was yet _another_ to add to the list because there is little use for a complicated chemical sensing apparatus in space. It was nice, though, and he was vaguely disappointed when the _blood_ stopped flowing from his now very much cleaner hands and knees, although not enough to try getting more.

Half a day and several miles of walking through uneventful grassland later, and Danny was grumbling to himself. _Not solar panels after all_. Without his noticing, his skin had gradually reddened and was now sensitive to the slightest breeze and exploded in pain when touched. Moreover, it _itched_. While the instincts had up until now been helpful, what was the point to one which made you injure yourself more?

He contemplated turning back. This was no longer fun. He ached all over, breathing had lost its excitement, and now there was something else he needed to get and he had no idea what it was or where to find it. He panted, and it was only made worse. That was it. He mentally cast around for his core.

While concentrating on it, his attention was diverted from the ground in front of him and he tripped over a tree root, pitching forward with a cry. He rolled down an incline, over a bush, and into a small stream with a splash.

He lay there patiently until the world decided to do something sensible like stop spinning. His head throbbed, and a cautious touch and a wince confirmed he'd hit it on something. The water rushing around him was cool and soothing wherever it touched a burn, and he decided he'd stay in it for a bit. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the world had changed. He could see stars above him, and for a panicked moment thought he was still back in space and flailed into a sitting position, dripping with water. His hair and clothes were soaked, weighing him down. He shivered as a breeze passed by, clutching the sides of his arms as his numb skin prickled. Once again, there was that powerful ache of _I want to go home_. But he was already there. Wasn't he? Where was it if not here?

He crawled to the bank and shakily stood up. He was so, so cold. There was a flicker of fear of what would happen if he got colder, memories of that moment in space coming back. He had to find warmth. He wasn't generating enough on his own. He wondered when the sun would rise again.

Once again, he reached for his core, but it was even colder and he balked, even as his rational mind was telling him it was his best bet. He shook himself to get the water off and to keep himself awake, before intangibly removing it completely, pleased to find he could still _do_ that after the flight fiasco. Something told him blacking out like that again would be a bad idea, and he started walking in no particular direction. One foot in front of the other, a mantra repeating itself over and over in his head.


End file.
